Product Description

Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden were key figures of the 1930s, and here Donald Mitchell traces their lives during one crucial year, 1936. They worked hard to establish themselves, first through the GPO film unit, in a collaboration which flowered and spilled over into the theatre, and then radio - a new medium that the liveliest creative minds of the time were exploring and exploiting. Britten and Auden also joined forces in works destined for the recital room and concert hall, among them Our Hunting Fathers, the political symbolism of which Donald Mitchell examines in depth, and On the Island, settings of early Auden that comprised Britten's first important set of songs to English texts. Much use is made of Britten's private diaries, which he kept on a daily basis, and a revealing portrait emerges of the two men's relationship, of their work together in many different fields, and of the reflection within that work of political ideas current at the time.DONALD MITCHELL was Britten's close friend and publisher from 1964 until the end of the composer's life, and his authorised biographer. The T S Eliot Memorial Lectures delivered in 1979

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1291511 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 190 pages

Customer Reviews

T. S. Eliot Memorial lectures
Britten's diary for 1936 supplies Mitchell with much of his material in this collection of lectures, notes and photographs, and consequently the bias of the book is in Britten's favour. The pioneering work of the GPO film unit (under John Grierson, Basil Wright and Alberto Cavalcanti) is explored through works such as Night Mail, Our Hunting Fathers, and On This Island. Britten was encouraged to score the sound effects to some of these pieces as though they were pieces of music, and the book contains a facsimile of part of the score for Night Mail on which the musical instruments range from "sandpaper on slate" to "coal falling down a shaft". The demise of their partnership as Auden's poetry became too difficult to set to music, their political perspectives and personalities, and the drift towards the Second World War are covered in the series of lectures. The treatment is objective, primarily a factual account of their relationship within the GPO, it could perhaps have been more readable as a biographical account rather than a series of lectures.